This is not just specifications of the new technology, but how you will use it and also how it will affact and integrate into the lives of the users.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

What you need to know about streaming your music - Pandora, Spotify and Songza

This blog has always written tech articles and blog posts about the hardware devices and software that effects our everyday lives, I wanted to shake up Charlieschecklist.com a little bit and write an article about music.

Many many many years ago, we used to have these businesses called record stores like Sam Goody and Virgin Mega Store that had nothing but media to sell to the consumers and when Napster and the iPhone was invented, it put the record stores out of business because why would I buy the entire CD when I only want one song? Since then mp3's have dominated the music market, but with the invention of Limewire and other file sharing systems, even digital sales are struggling to sell units today.

Now the new wave of technology brought us Pandora Radio, Pandora Radio was the first music project to integrate into our everyday lives. Pandora is a streaming music service that finds similar artist and songs to whomever you pick. You have the option of "liking" (thumbs up) or "disliking" (thumbs down) and this tell Pandora what you really want to hear. Pandora is now in smart TVs and everyone's cell phone as the original streaming music.

Spotify is a music streaming service that allows you to make playlists that are custom to your liking. Unlike Pandora, Spotify lets you stream the entire album of any artist on their network which is very large and comprehensive. Spotify allows you to follow people and artists on for profile and also share playlists with fellow Facebook users. Spotify is great and many people's go-to streaming service because of the ability to control more of the content you like and also gives you the option to download songs with a premium subscription. If you choose the Premium subscription then you also enjoy ad-free listening and also the ability to hear any song and playlist as you like without having to have your playlist song selection shuffled.

And now Songza... The reason Songza is relevant as of late is because Songza was recently acquired by Google and will soon be incorporated into the Google Music. While Apple acquire Beats and Beats Music, I haven't got around to using that service but will post a review about it soon. Sognza is a service that will let you stream music by mood, time of day or activity you are doing, such as studying, working or working out. The playlists are created by people/DJ in the music industry and the playlists are updated weekly. This is a good feature because if you want to listen to Current Music, but specifically Club Music, there is a playlist for that, and a Happy Hour Latin Playlist... this is better for people who want to discover more music that is specifically for occasions for parties and also relaxing which Spotify requires you make or follow and Pandora will just play similar artist but mostly the artist you pick.

In closing, I use all three streaming services on my phone. the one I recommend is Songza, not because I am a Googler, but as a DJ who needs to hear and stay on top of music while discovering new music, current and old, I need a service that could help me as the radio stations have the same songs on rotation all the time. On my desktop, Spotify is my preference because the user experience is great as it really doesn't work well on mobile, except if you are just streaming your playlists. And if you have a Smart TV, Then Pandora is your go-to Streamer..... by defaut

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